Song of the Vampire (Vanderlind Realm Book 3)

by Gayla Twist

  “I don’t,” Alfred protested. When the other two didn’t say anything, he continued with, “Oh, it’s not that I hate them, it’s just that they’re so annoying with their disgusting fortune built on blood banks. It’s like they want to erase the essence of what a vampire is supposed to be.”

  “And you’re angry you didn’t think of it?” the man asked with a chuckle.

  “But seriously, what are you going to do with him?” the woman pressed. “You can’t keep him here forever.”

  “We’ll see how cooperative the girl turns out to be,” Alfred grunted. “If she gives us any trouble, then maybe we can use him as leverage.”

  “Has she been cooperating so far?” the woman asked.

  “I told you it was too soon to know anything,” Alfred snapped.

  The man spoke up with, “What will you do with him if she turns out to be very cooperative?”

  “Whelp.” I could tell that Uncle Alfred was indulging in a large stretch. “Then my guest might encounter a hunting accident.”

  “You wouldn’t!” the man exclaimed. “He’s a Vanderlind.”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t,” Alfred admitted. “But then again, maybe I would.”

  The air on the porch shifted and I became aware that someone had just snuck into my room. As casually as possible, I rose to my feet and picked up the carafe. It’s wasn’t as menacing as having a stake, but at least I could give the intruder a good clunk on the head.

  As I turned around, I saw Misty standing in the middle of my room, staring at me, her eyes wide. When I went to speak, she lifted a finger to her lips and then gestured that I should come inside.

  “What is it?” I asked her in a low voice after closing the door to the balcony.

  “Do you know who you are?” she asked. Under other circumstances, it would have seemed like an odd question.

  “Well, I know I’m not Darius,” I told her.

  Misty struggled to keep her face from crumpling. “I’m sorry,” she blurted. “I… I’m… You’re Dorian Vanderlind,” she finally managed to say. “Does that name sound at all familiar to you?”

  “Dorian.” I gave it some thought. “It sounds more familiar than Darius, Daemon, or Darren.”

  “That’s who you are,” she whispered. “You’re a member of one of the wealthiest families in the undead world.”

  I shook my head, trying to clear it. “But why can’t I remember?”

  “You got zapped by a special kind of Taser that uses colloidal silver,” Misty explained. “It causes temporary memory loss in the undead.”

  Knowing my own name was nice, but it wasn’t exactly making anything clearer. “Why would somebody want to do this to me? What have I done?”

  “You’ve done nothing,” Misty said, bursting into tears.

  “But then why?” I pressed. My head was aching with frustration.

  “It’s your progeny,” she said in a voice that was barely a whisper.

  “My progeny?”

  Misty nodded. “The woman you love. She’s in danger.”

  And then I had the most remarkable feeling in my skull; it was like the cork popping from a bottle of champagne. A single word sprang to my lips. “Haley!”

  Chapter 13

  Haley

  “Haley.”

  On some level I heard the voice, but I couldn’t summon the energy to respond, or even react.

  “Haley,” Randolph said again, but this time much louder.

  I shifted my eyes in his general direction.

  “You have to eat something,” he said, holding a goblet out to me.

  Reaching for my dinner was weirdly exhausting; I just couldn’t be bothered. I found it challenging to do anything since discovering that my maker had abandoned me.

  At first I didn’t believe the front desk. Who checks out of his rooms in the middle of a blizzard? So I ran through the storm, this time finding Dorian’s suite almost immediately. I pounded on the door, only to have it answered by a maid who was cleaning up.

  “Where’s Dorian?” I demanded, pushing past her and entering the rooms. “Dorian!” I shouted. “Dorian!” But the room was barren of his things. The only evidence I could find that he’d been there at all was one of his baroque pearl cufflink lying on the carpet in the entrance way. I snatched up and immediately pressed to my lips. They were his favorite pair, a gift from his Aunt Alice, and I knew that he wouldn’t want to lose one of them.

  I couldn’t just accept Dorian’s abandonment without a fight, so I went to the front desk and demanded to know what had happened to him. The mortal behind the counter was so terrified by my behavior that she ran to a back room, slamming the door behind her and locking it.

  Eventually Randolph found me. “Come along, Haley,” he said, scooping me up off the floor. “If this is the way he treats you, then Mr. Fancy Vanderlind is not worth your tears.”

  But Dorian was worth my tears. He was the most wonderful person I had ever known. At least he was wonderful to me. At least until he abandon me.

  I had no money of my own and no way of even getting off Antarctica. Dorian had always told me that, as his progeny, I was entitled to a portion of the Vanderlind fortune, but I didn’t exactly know how to access the fortune. Plus, it would have been too humiliating to go grubbing to the Vanderlind family for money after being rejected by my mentor. I didn’t want to see another set of gray eyes for as long as I lived. And, unless I was willing to embrace the sun, that would be for an eternity.

  I’d been rejected by plenty of guys when I was a mortal. In fact, the reason I was a vampire was due to one particularly slimy boy who had humiliated me in front of half our high school. But none of those rejections or humiliations felt even close to how painful Dorian’s abandonment felt.

  If he’d left me with some sort of explanation, that would have been one thing. But to just disappear without even a goodbye really hurt. And also just plain didn’t make sense. I’d already told him all my deepest, darkest secrets, so it wasn't like he’d suddenly discovered something horrible about me. But what could have made him leave? The one explanation that I kept coming back to was Elaina. She had to have said something or done something that upset him. But what?

  And then there was his cufflink. Even though he’d grown up with extreme wealth, Dorian always took care of his things, especially things that meant something to him. He’d told me about his baroque pearl cufflinks; they were made by the same man who did a bunch of those fancy mechanical eggs for the Russian royal family before the revolution. He wouldn’t have just dropped one on the floor and then not bother to pick it up, no matter how desperately he wanted to get away from me. If he was packing and he realized that one was missing, he would have looked for it, not just left it lying on the floor in the entrance way. None of it made any sense.

  And then there was the problem of contacting Dorian. Even if I wanted to call him, I had no way of getting ahold of him. I didn’t know his dad. I didn’t know how to contact the Vanderlind Castle back in Tiburon. I’d been so happy for the last couple of weeks that I never stopped to consider the fact that, at some point, we might not be together.

  I was an idiot.

  I don’t know what I would have done if Randolph wasn’t looking out for me. I guess he took being my dad pretty seriously because he covered what I owed on my rooms and arranged for transportation to get us off of Antarctica.

  “What will you do now?” Randolph asked as we relaxed aboard the icebreaker ship that was transporting us back to the southern tip of Argentina.

  I shook my head. “I have no idea.”

  “Once we get back to the United State, do you have any money?”

  My lack of response revealed the truth.

  “That creep has left you penniless?” he cried, completely astounded.

  “He’s given me a lot of jewelry,” I told him. “I’ll sell some of it and then rent a room, or something.” I was willing to sell every piece he ever gave me, besides the first bracelet. That w
ould never leave my wrist, even if I lived to infinity.

  “This is utter nonsense!” Randolph fumed. “You’re coming to live with me.”

  “No, I couldn’t,” I told him. “It would be too…” I meant to say awkward, but then I stopped myself because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

  “Haley, you’re my daughter,” Randolph insisted. “I didn’t even get to know you while you were alive. At least let’s spend some time together now. You have eternity to pawn your valuables and go rent some grubby, little apartment.”

  “But how am I your daughter?” I wanted to know. “How are you my dad, if vampires can’t have children?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, throwing up his hands in bewilderment. “I guess we’ll have to ask a doctor to figure something like that out. But for me,” he said, reaching over and taking my hand, “it’s a miracle.” And then he kissed me on the crown of my head. It felt like a very fatherly thing to do.

  And that’s how I ended up staying in a luxury high-rise condominium on the gold coast of Chicago. It struck me as ironic that, when I was a mortal, I’d always planned to move to Chicago. Maybe on some level I somehow knew that my dad lived there.

  Randolph did everything within his power to form a bond with me in a very parental way, but it was awkward for both of us. He wasn’t used to having a daughter and I had never even considered the possibility that someday I might have a dad. This was largely due to the fact that my mother always told me that my father was dead. And, it turns out, she was telling the truth. She’d even mentioned that my father was a vampire. But that was only once, right after I’d revealed to her that I’d become a member of the undead. At the time I just assumed she’d said it to be nice. Or maybe to mess with me.

  Try as I might, I couldn’t remember if these were details that I’d shared with Randolph on the night that we met. That really bothered me, and I couldn’t figure out why the blood we’d drunk had affected me so strangely. But, whatever it was, Randolph also drank it. So maybe his memory was fuzzy, too. At least I hoped it was. I didn’t want to be suspicious of my own dad, but I didn’t have a lot of experience actually trusting men.

  Still, I was grateful that my father had offered me a place to stay. His home was very nice; he obviously wasn’t struggling for cash. Plus, it was on Chicago’s Gold Coast, which was some of the priciest real estate in the United States. His condo spared no luxury, down to a restaurant quality Italian coffee maker that probably cost more than most people’s cars. Through my daze of misery, I had to wonder about the enamel and chrome beast living on the counter in the kitchen. When Randolph climbed out of his coffin each night, the first thing he did was fiddle with the valves and levers on the machine, brewing himself a cappuccino. Randolph didn’t drink coffee, of course — mortal food tasted like chewing on a piece of cardboard to the undead — but he would sit with a cup and sniff it while reading the paper.

  “Why do you do that?” I finally asked on the second night that I was there.

  He looked up at me, probably surprised that I had initiated a conversation. Besides a few failed attempts to get ahold of my mother since our arrival, I’d been pretty silent and miserable. “Habit,” he said with a shrugged. Then he picked up his coffee and deeply inhaled the aroma, closing his eyes to give the smell his fullest attention. “Coffee tastes vile to me now, but the smell can still take me back to my mortal days. I spent a semester of college in Italy and the coffee there is simply divine.”

  “Did you do a lot of travelling as a mortal?” I asked, pouring myself some breakfast from a carafe chilling in the refrigerator.

  “Not as much as I’d have liked,” he said with a sigh. “I travel now, of course, but it’s not the same as seeing the beauty the world has to offer in the bright sunshine.”

  “Have you ever spent any time in Asia?” I asked while climbing onto one of the kitchen stools that were lined up against a counter.”

  “I did a trip to Thailand as a mortal,” Randolph said after sniffing his coffee again. “That was pretty great.”

  I wanted to ask him about my mom. She’d said my father had died in Vietnam — the country, not the war — and I had no reason not to believe her. That was one of the stories she’d been consistent about during my childhood. But it felt awkward bringing it up, seeing that I was pretty sure we’d already talked about it.

  “Can I ask you a favor?” Randolph said, rising from his chair.

  “Sure.” I didn’t like agreeing to favors without knowing what they were first, but given the circumstances, I didn’t feel like I could say refuse, no matter what he requested.

  “I’d really like to know how we managed this,” he said, gesturing back and forth between us. ‘I mean, vampires aren’t supposed to be able to reproduce.”

  “Yeah, I was always told that was a rule.”

  “So I’d like to do a blood test,” he went on. “I don’t want you to think for one moment that I don’t want to be your dad. I want it very much, and I intend to keep being your dad, even if we’re not biologically related.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s just that it would mean so much for the undead community if we knew for sure,” Randolph went on. “Think of it. Even if a child was born mortal, for a vampire to have a baby… It would…” His emotions caused him to pause there for a moment, but then he pulled himself together and said, “It would change our world. And...”

  “Randolph,” I said, interrupting him. “I’ll do it. I don’t mind. I said okay.”

  “Oh.” He released a happy laugh. “It’s just that I’ve always wanted children. I mean, more children. And the thought of being able to hold a baby…”

  “I’m fine with it,” I told him. “We can do it now, if you want to.” The truth was, I wanted to have a baby. Or, at least, the idea of having a baby with Dorian was a fantasy of mine. At least it was up until he disappeared on me. But my heart still hoped for a reconciliation. I had to hope for something or I thought I might as well just walk out into the sunlight.

  “I’ll have a physician come here,” Randolph said, picking up the phone. “And wouldn’t it be thrilling? I mean, not only have I gained a daughter, but there’s a chance… I mean, this could change everything.”

  He was just so excited that I was happy to do it for him, even though having a needle stuck in my arm wasn’t my favorite thing. It was the least I could do after he’d been so kind to me.

  Thirty minutes later and an elderly woman walked into the living room carrying a medical bag. For some reason I wasn’t expecting a mortal, but the doctor didn’t seemed at all concerned about the fact that she was drawing blood from a member of the undead. She filled several vials and even swabbed the inside of my cheek for a saliva test.

  “That should take care of things,” she said after packing my blood samples in some type of mini travel cooler.

  “When will we know the results?” Randolph asked. He’d been standing by my side the entire time. I think he would have even held my hand if I’d let him.

  “Just a few days,” was her reply.

  “But wait,” I said, stopping her before she could get too far toward the door. “Don’t you have to take Randolph’s blood as well?” I didn’t know that much about paternity tests, but it only made sense that they would have to compare my DNA with my potential father’s.

  The doctor and Randolph exchanged looks. “Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary,” the lady said. “I’ve got everything I need.”

  “No you don’t,” I corrected her. I wasn’t a doctor, but this was plain common sense. “If you don’t have his blood, then you don’t have anything to compare my results to.”

  “Okay, fine,” the doctor said, looking annoyed. She turned to Randolph. “Roll up your sleeve.” I couldn’t help but notice that she only took one vial of Randolph’s blood.

  After the doctor left, Randolph turned to me and said, “Want to do some online shopping?”

  “Huh?” The suggestion see
med kind of abrupt.

  “I don’t know,” he said with a shake of his head. “If we were mortals, then I’d suggest that we go out for ice cream.”

  Chapter 14

  Haley

  Two nights later and Randolph knocked on the door to my room. I’d been lying on the bed, pressing Dorian’s cufflink to my lips. I just wished there was a way I could contact him and hear what he had to say.

  “Come in,” I said, after sitting up and quickly wiping the tears from my eyes.

  The door opened. “Hey,” Randolph said, poking his head into the room. “The test results came back. They’re encouraging, but not conclusive.”

  I wasn’t quite sure what he was talking about. “What does that mean?”

  “It means they’d like us to come in for some more tests.”

  “What kind of tests?” I asked. I’d done a small amount of research on DNA testing and there was never any mention of additional tests after a blood sample.

  “I don’t know,” he told me. “But they want us both to come in. I’m sure it’s not that big of a deal.”

  I wanted to say that if the doctors couldn’t figure things out from a blood sample, then I didn’t think additional tests would help, but Randolph looked so excited and eager that I didn’t feel like I could say no. “Okay,” I told him. “When do they want us?”

  He looked at his watch. “Tonight, if it’s convenient. I know I don’t have any plans, but…”

  I knew he was just being polite. I didn’t know anyone in Chicago and never had any plans. In fact, I barely left my room. “I think my schedule’s free,” I told him. “Maybe we can go see some art afterward.”

  “What kind of art?” he asked, a broad smile spreading his lips; I’d never requested to go do anything before.

  “I’d like to see that big, silver bean thing in AT&T Plaza,” I told him.

  “Ah, yes. Cloud Gate.” Randolph nodded. “But everyone just calls it The Bean. Let’s do it on the way over. We can stop and see the Picasso when we’re all done.”